A Cross-sectional Study on Medicolegal Post-mortem Examination Conducted in a Tertiary care Medical College of West Bengal Bandyopadhyay S1, Harsha PS2, Mahata S3, Das A4,*, Adhya S5 1Associate Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, College of Medicine & JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Nadia 2Postgraduate Student, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, College of Medicine & JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Nadia 3Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Jhargram Medical College, Jhargram 4Associate Professor & Head, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Calcutta National Medical College, Kolkata 5Professor & Head, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, College of Medicine & JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Nadia *Corresponding Author, Dr. Abhishrek Das, Email : abhishek.das.forensic@gmail.com, Mobile No.: +91 8902640596
Online Published on 26 July, 2024. Abstract Unnatural and suspicious deaths are grounds for performing medicolegal autopsy examinations. It is performed by forensic medicine experts and doctors trained in autopsy to determine the cause of death which is the prime objective of medicolegal autopsy. Apart from that, manner and mode of death, time since death, identification of the deceased are other important objectives. Mortality data from various unnatural deaths gives important information regarding the different violent incidents prevailing in society. The following study aims to make a cross-sectional observation on various unnatural deaths in a medical college police morgue in a particular time of the year. The police inquest reports and the autopsy reports were reviewed before starting the post-mortem examinations in the police morgue. It was a prospective study done over two months for the study time in the initial months of covid lockdown. All the cases during that period were included in the study. Data were tabulated first, then subjected to appropriate statistical methods and published as results. Of the 103 cases a male predominance of 69 cases was observed, and majority (90.2%) were Hindu by religion. The majority of the deceased were of age range 21 to 30 years followed by 41 to 50 years. Poisoning (35.3%) and hanging (33.3%) were found to be the most common causes of death whereas natural disease caused death in 6.9% of cases. The suicidal rate was the highest (81.1%) Suicidal death continues to be the majority of unnatural deaths. Poisoning and hanging claimed most of the lives whereas road traffic accidents, and accidental falls, caused significant mortality. Top Keywords Autopsy, Postmortem examination, Medicolegal, Unnatural death, Tertiary care, West Bengal. Top |